Dishonorable Conduct

Honor code may not be enough to solve academic integrity issues at Harvard

Submitted by Allie Grasgreen on September 6, 2012 - 3:00am

Officials at Harvard University were quick to condemn the behavior of the 125 students
suspected of collaborating inappropriately on a take-home exam.

“These allegations, if proven, represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon
which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends,” Harvard President Drew Faust said in a
statement [1].

Harvard officials, who declined to comment for this story, say they plan to revisit their academic
integrity policies and possibly create an honor code. It’s not the first time they’ve raised the idea
– for at least two years now, administrators have recognized the potential need for a makeover.
In 2010, undergraduate dean Jay Harris told The Harvard Crimson [2] that academic dishonesty
there was “a real problem.”

Harvard's official handbook says students should “assume that collaboration in the completion of
assignments is prohibited unless explicitly permitted by the instructor.” And the university
apparently created a voluntary academic integrity pledge students could sign last year, the Globe
reported, but scrapped it this year.

One idea administrators have floated publicly is an honor code. But experts say the whole
situation is indicative of systemic issues that will be hard to address simply by throwing one
together.

Perhaps the main culprit in such behavior, experts say, one that is ingrained deeply in college
students today – particularly at elite universities like Harvard – is the idea that the main objective
should be to pass, not to learn.

By the time students get to college, they have internalized messages “mistakenly conveyed to
them” by both society and the educational system that the experience “is simply a means to an
end,” said Teddi Fishman, director of Clemson University’s International Center for Academic
Integrity [3].

“The students who make it to us (and especially the ones who end up in schools like Harvard)
have learned exactly what they have to do to succeed, and sadly, that often has very little to do
with becoming educated,” Fishman said in an e-mail. “Instead, it’s almost solely about figuring
out what will be asked (in papers, tests, and other assessments), learning that material long
enough to produce it when necessary, and then moving on to the next thing.”
Mollie Galloway, an assistant professor of education and counseling at Lewis & Clark College in
Oregon, conducted research [4] finding that 93 percent of students at a group of affluent high
schools had cheated in one way or another – be it copying answers, using electronics in class, or
plagiarizing. Singling out the juniors and seniors, she found that 26 percent had cheated in 7 or
more of 13 different ways.

Many of these students say cheating is the only way they can keep up with their work, Galloway
said; it’s cheat or be cheated.

“We really live in a society where getting ahead of the next guy is a primary value. It’s what
defines success in our country,” she said. “They feel caught up in this system where it requires
them to sacrifice their integrity or do whatever they can to get ahead, because that’s the system
we’ve created.”

In the days after news of the scandal broke, students in the class started speaking out, saying the
course and instructors were so confusing and inconsistent that students had no choice but to
collaborate, and in some cases did so in the presence of teaching assistants. (Granted, some of
the students also complained that they got in trouble for behavior that would have been tolerated
in years past; the course apparently had a reputation of being easy.) In course evaluations, The
New York Times [5] reported, they said the exam questions did not cover material taught in the
course, and that questions “were designed to trick you rather than test your understanding of the
material.” Some said the teaching assistants assigned to help the students gave everyone the
same answers.

Those who are under investigation -- half the students who took the class, or 2 percent of the
entire undergraduate population – face possible one-year suspensions, and some of those who
have already graduated and might have their diplomas revoked are now threatening to sue the
university.

Some have defended the students [6], noting that in professional situations, collaboration would
be encouraged rather than condemned.

Anonymous contributors to a political science blog and job board [7] (the course in question was
on introductory government) have been less forgiving. “The existence of an environment where
one might cheat is not an excuse for cheating,” one wrote. Another commented: “These spoiled
brats seem to be turning on their professor to protect their diplomas.” (Others took greater issue
with the professor and class format than the students.)

If Harvard does go the honor code route, it could help create a culture where students and
professors are more trusting of one another and cheating is less likely to occur.

Honor codes vary in form and are relatively rare, with probably fewer than 100 around, said
Donald L. McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers University who
has conducted research and surveys on student cheating for more than two decades. Honor codes
generally include at least one of four components: a pledge students sign to affirm they won’t or
didn’t cheat on an assignment; a non-toleration clause in which students promise to turn in
students they see cheating (these are rare); a judiciary board controlled evenly or mostly by
students; and unproctored exams.

McCabe’s surveys have indicated honor codes do reduce rates of cheating, but by how much
varies. In three surveys of about 30 small- to medium-sized liberal arts colleges, slightly
concentrated in the East, fewer students at colleges with honor codes than those without reported
copying exam answers from one another. 13, 19 and 8 percent reported cheating at “code
schools,” compared to 31, 32 and 14 percent at “no-code schools.” The surveys are from the
1990-1, 1995-6 and 2005-6 academic years.

“I’m a great believer in honor codes, and if I were [Harvard] I would look at how I might be able
to implement an honor code,” McCabe said, adding that faculty and administrators who resist
honor codes – as seems to have been the case at Harvard – tend to do so because it means
surrendering control to students via a student judicial board or unproctored testing.

The honor code at Bryn Mawr College – one of the best codes in the country, as determined by
McCabe – not only reduces cheating, it creates a more trusting campus culture because it teaches
students about academic integrity right off the bat and all through college, said Tyler Garber,
vice president of Bryn Mawr’s Self-Government Association.

“It’s not about the grade here at school because of the honor code – I think it’s about your own
learning process,” Garber said, adding that one component of the integrity education is
discussing the line between collaboration and cheating. (Students are encouraged to discuss and
share ideas inside and outside class, but when it comes time to write, they should do so
independently.) “We kind of harp on that with students right when they get to school…. People
understand what’s cheating, what’s not cheating here, and it’s also a really good community at
school.”

Regardless of what route Harvard takes, Fishman said, it’s essential that students are actively
involved in – or lead – the effort.

“Ideally, discussions about integrity to should occur in a number of different settings and become
part of the culture on campus -- as integral a part of scholarly activity as such things as the
scientific method or documentation methods,” she said. “When that happens, and the students
see integrity as something they are invested in, that has greater effect, in my opinion, than
whether or not a school has an honor code in place.”

Teaching and Learning [8]

Source URL: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/09/06/honor-code-may-not-be-

enough-solve-academic-integrity-issues-harvard

Links:
[1] http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/08/college-announces-investigation/
[2] http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/3/24/honor-code-students-academic/
[3] http://www.academicintegrity.org/icai/home.php
[4] http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hebh20/current
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/education/students-of-harvard-cheating-scandal-say-
group-work-was-accepted.html?_r=1
[6]
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/09/harvard_cheating_
scandal_everyone_has_it_wrong_the_students_should_be_celebrated_for_collaborating_on_an_
unfair_test_.html
[7] http://www.poliscijobrumors.com/topic.php?id=6429
[8] http://www.insidehighered.com/news/focus/teaching-and-learning